


Toy Soldiers

by fengirl88



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV)
Genre: M/M, Non-Consensual, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Power Dynamics, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-19 06:15:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4735556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fengirl88/pseuds/fengirl88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wellington orders Grant to teach Strange a lesson. It does not go quite as expected.</p><p> </p><p>  <b>Content advisory: Non-consensual sexual acts.</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	Toy Soldiers

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for a JSMN kinkmeme prompt: [ "Strange -Orgasm Denial"](http://jsmn-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/1273.html?thread=745977#cmt745977) and in response to additional suggestions on the prompt thread that Wellington might do this to remind Strange who's boss, or might have Grant do it.

“Lord Wellington wants to see you, Merlin,” De Lancey announced when the army returned to camp, late in the afternoon. “He’s in his tent.”

“Lord Wellington times his requests ill,” Strange said. He had been working all day on a new spell, and had almost finished his notes.

“It is not a request,” De Lancey said. “Don’t keep him waiting, he’s in enough of a bate as it is.”

What impossible task did Wellington have for him now, Strange wondered irritably. Perhaps he would like him to reverse night and day, or throw the mountains into the sea.

 

“Mr Strange,” Wellington greeted him. It was the first time he had called Strange by his right name, and consequently more unnerving than anything else he could have said.

“You sent for me, my lord?” Strange glanced at Major Grant, who was standing next to Wellington’s desk, but there was no clue in Grant’s expression.

“You are impetuous, Mr Strange,” Wellington said coldly. “You lack control. You are undisciplined, and that is a thing I will not have in my army, even from a magician.”

“My lord, the forests – ” Strange began, but Wellington raised his hand to silence him.

“I don’t want your excuses,” he said. “By God, I had a good mind to put you on a charge; you may think yourself lucky I did not. Major Grant will deal with you here and now.”

The last man who had thrashed Strange was his own father, now dead. He had sworn then that no one should ever do so again. If Grant attempted it, he thought, he would use his magic to pull Lord Wellington’s tent down around their ears. He would raise another mist for his own escape and go back to England, whatever the consequences.

“Look sharp, man,” Wellington snapped at Grant. “Don’t stand there shilly-shallying like a curate in a bawdy-house.”

His words suggested a new possibility to Strange, but one so incredible that he dismissed it as a freak of his own disordered imagination. Whatever punishment Wellington intended Grant to administer, it surely could not be _that_.

Grant crossed the space between them reluctantly, or so it seemed to him. He was standing so close that Strange could smell the scarlet wool of his coat, still faintly damp from the afternoon’s rain. He took hold of Strange’s breeches by the waistband and unbuttoned them with rapid efficiency. He did not look at Strange while he performed this operation. 

After Wellington’s remark about the bawdy-house, Strange thought wildly that Grant must be going to unbutton his own breeches next, perhaps to push him down onto the camp-bed in the corner of the tent and use him like a common prostitute. He was frozen with disbelief and a queasy sense of panic. He felt he should say something, but words seemed to have deserted him. 

Grant made no move to unfasten his own clothes, however. Instead, he spat in his hand, reached into Strange’s breeches and unceremoniously grasped his cock. 

Strange’s knees almost buckled with shock, every nerve in his body lighting up at the unaccustomed sensation. No one had touched him for longer than he could remember, and for weeks now he had been so fatigued at the end of each day that he scarcely had the energy or the inclination to touch himself. Grant’s hand was warm and calloused and sure, and Strange’s cock was growing quickly hard and eager under his touch. 

What kind of punishment was this, Strange wondered dizzily as Grant stroked and squeezed him. Was _he_ supposed to fuck Grant after this, or, God help him, Wellington? He looked at Grant, wanting to say _What is this nonsense, has he gone mad?_ But Grant’s face was still closed and set, avoiding his gaze. In any case, it was rapidly becoming impossible for Strange to see clearly, or to do anything but groan as he thrust into Grant’s hand. He was so close now to spending that a few more of those damnably skilful touches would surely finish him.

“Stop,” Wellington ordered.

Grant stilled his hand, and then removed it, leaving Strange gasping and shuddering, his cock jutting rigid and flushed from his breeches.

“Self-control,” Wellington said. “Discipline.” 

Strange glared at him in bewilderment. Wellington had taken out his pocket-watch and was studying the dial with a bored expression, for all the world as if he had not just been watching Major Grant frig the army’s magician. Perhaps he had _not_ been watching; Strange would not have known one way or the other, so intoxicating had Grant’s attentions been. He wondered why he was standing there like a fool, half-mad with frustration, instead of doing something. He could put a spell on the pair of them; it would be no more than they deserved, though in truth he was not sure what kind of spell he would be able to cast in his present condition.

Wellington snapped his watch shut. “Again,” he said. “Not so fast this time.”

Grant’s hand was a delicious agony, long, slow, twisting strokes that made Strange cry out in spite of himself when Grant’s palm curved over the head of his cock. He gritted his teeth against the pleasure until he saw stars. With humiliating rapidity he found himself close again to spending, feeling the approach of his crisis in his skin and his bones and the ends of his hair, all his nerves quivering and straining for release –

“Stop,” Wellington said again, and Grant took his hand away once more. Strange’s hips jerked helplessly, fucking the air.

“What is Major Grant teaching you?” Wellington asked.

“Self-control,” Strange spat out. “Discipline. Sir.” And then, since something more seemed to be required: “My lord.”

“Better,” Wellington said. “Again, Grant.” 

_He will tire of this_ , Strange thought; _he must tire of it. Repetition dulls the senses._

But not Strange’s senses, oh, not his. Again and again Grant brought him inexorably to the edge. He could not fight it. He could not think of anything else. He was utterly helpless between the excruciating pleasure Grant wrung from him and the repeated torment of its interruption at Wellington’s command. He was sweating and giddy, barely able to stand up. He heard his own voice, cracked and hoarse, begging Grant to finish him, and saw the look on Grant’s face that said _You fool, I’m not the one you have to beg._

He would _not_ beg Wellington. If he lost his wits altogether, if he died even, he would not give that man the satisfaction of refusing him. This torment would stop, he knew it now, when Wellington decided it would, and not before. Nothing he could say or do would make any difference to that.

There was a high noise in his ears, like the vibration of bowstrings or fiddle-strings wound tight to snapping. It was the guy-ropes, he realized; perhaps he would bring the tent down on them after all, though he no longer intended it.

“Finish him,” Wellington barked, who no doubt had heard it too.

Grant’s hand closed around him again, knowing and strong. Strange saw with dull surprise that Grant’s cock was straining at his breeches, and that his eyes, looking directly into Strange’s for the first time in this ordeal, were wide and dark. His breathing was ragged, almost in time with Strange’s own as he worked him fast and hard.

“Come on, damn you,” Grant muttered, half-desperate, and the sound of it brought on Strange’s crisis. He spent and spent into Grant’s hand, till it felt as if there was nothing left of him. The ground came up towards him as he slumped to the floor of the tent.

“Give him some water,” Wellington ordered.

Strange spluttered and coughed as he drank, and Grant thumped him on the back. He used his left hand for that, Strange noticed, with a curious sense of detachment; Grant’s right hand clasped a soiled handkerchief, the sight of which made Strange feel dizzy again.

“Gentlemen, you are dismissed,” Wellington said. Nothing in his tone suggested what he thought of the scene he had just witnessed, or even acknowledged that it had happened.

Strange tucked his spent and aching cock back into his breeches and buttoned them with trembling hands. He was not sure he could stand unaided.

“Get up, man,” Grant said awkwardly, heaving him to his feet.

 

It was still light outside the tent, which surprised Strange. He felt as if it should have been much later. Everything had an air of unreality about it, as if the thing had happened to someone else, or in a dream. He glanced sideways at Grant, who did not have the air of a man just awakened from sleep, but looked rather as if he had been fighting for hours. Strange had seen that look of Grant’s after more battles than he cared to remember; it was odd to see it now.

If he had ever imagined such a scene as the one in the tent, which seemed to him stranger than many of his magical encounters, he would have assumed there must be shame in it. Certainly it would appear that Wellington intended there should be; but he did not feel it. He was not sure why not.

“He chose poorly,” Strange said, thinking aloud. If Wellington had wanted him to feel shame, he should have made someone else carry out the task he had given to Grant. “Why did he ask _you_ to do that?”

The question appeared to give Grant pain; a shadow crossed his face.

“Lord Wellington does not approve of particular friendships amongst his men,” he said heavily. “He knew that I had – that I have – a kindness for you.”

“What, and he thought to end our friendship by having you frig me?” Strange exclaimed. The absurdity of it made him want to laugh, even as he felt his gorge rise with fury.

Grant did not answer; the shadow was still on his face. Strange had an unaccountable desire to make it go away.

“I’m glad he did not order you to flog me, then,” he said. “It is but a couple of letters’ difference, after all.”

The joke was evidently a miserable failure; Grant remained silent for some time, gazing at the dust. 

“Does the thought of what passed in there not burn you?” he broke out at last.

Strange considered the question, and the question that seemed to lie beneath it. “You think it would always be between us?”

“How could it not be?” Grant asked bitterly. He kicked at a stone, and began walking towards his tent, Strange following him.

Strange did not know what to say; it seemed important to find the right phrase, and he was still so light-headed and bewildered. “Memory is a – a palimpsest, is it not? What happened just now will be overlaid with other memories, and they in turn with others, if we live so long.”

That did not look as if it had consoled Grant, who went on walking in silence. Strange thought about their friendship, how unlikely it was that it should ever have happened, and how very much in spite of everything he did not want to lose it. It was one of the few pleasures of life in the Peninsula, and he did not see why Wellington should be allowed to take it from him on a whim. He remembered the unmistakable signs that showed how Grant’s own desires had been stirred by what passed between them, and the desperation in his face and voice at the last.

“There are some things I would not wish to forget,” Strange said, choosing his words with care. “I wish the circumstances had been otherwise, God knows I could have done without Wellington staring at us like a puppet-show. But I am not sorry to have received pleasure at your hands.”

Grant stumbled, and would have fallen if Strange had not caught him by the elbow.

“Thank you,” Grant said. His face was crimson, very nearly the colour of his coat.

Strange could not have said exactly what he felt, seeing that blush: there was affection for Grant, anger and relief and a fierce sense of being fully alive for the first time in many weeks, if not months. He would not have been surprised to find he could move mountains after all.

“My dear Major,” he said, giddy with high spirits. “Think nothing of it.” And then, with a perfectly brazen glance at Grant’s breeches, he added “If it really troubles you, I am ready to even the score whenever you wish.” 

Grant gave him a wild, disbelieving look, as if he did not trust the evidence of his own ears. 

“After a wash, and dinner, of course,” Strange said, becoming urgently aware of his need for both these things. “And preferably without an audience this time.”

He began to laugh, and, after a moment’s stunned silence, so did Grant.


End file.
